1. Field of the Invention
The present invention provides a goggle mask, and in particular, to a goggle mask for use underwater or during water sports.
2. Descriptions of the Related Art
Conventional goggle masks for use underwater or during water sports are usually provided with a drain valve to allow the user to drain the water that undesirably enters into the goggle masks. In consideration of the structural stability of some draining mechanisms, the conventional drain valve must be made of a hard material; furthermore, the conventional drain valve is separately fabricated and then assembled onto a goggle mask.
Because the drain valve is made of a hard material, the drain valve may make contact with the user's face, causing discomfort when the user is wearing the goggle mask. The discomfort is especially troublesome when the drain valve comes into contact with the user's philtrum, which is the most sensitive and fragile portion of the face, so even the slightest touch or pressure from the hard drain valve will cause discomfort to the user. Particularly, this may become more intolerable after the user has participated in a water sport or has been diving for a long time. However, for safety reasons, the user has no choice but to wear the goggle mask continuously, and this is often very painful to the user. Additionally, it is difficult to compress the drain value when the user has to pack up the goggle mask, which makes the packed goggle mask bulky in volume and inconvenient to carry.
Furthermore, conventionally, the drain valve is assembled onto, i.e., detachably connected to, the goggle mask, and the position of the drain valve usually corresponds to the nose portion that protrudes the most in the goggle mask. Therefore, it is possible for the drain valve to be detached from the goggle mask due to impact or squeezing by external objects during the use or storage of the goggle mask; this is troublesome to the user and may even cause a risk of water leakage. Moreover, an assembling gap may arise between the drain valve and the goggle mask after being assembled, and this further increases the possibility of water leakage.
To overcome the aforesaid drawbacks, some improvements on the drain valve have been proposed, for example, the solution proposed in Taiwan Patent No. 483416. According to this solution, the hard drain valve is formed integrally with a soft mask to solve the problem of water leakage. However, this solution still cannot effectively solve the problem of discomfort caused by the drain valve coming into contact with the user; furthermore, because of the significant difference in material between the hard drain valve and the soft mask, it is difficult to integrally form the drain valve and the soft mask.
Besides what is described above, conventional drain valves also have other drawbacks. For example, there is a plurality of draining holes in the drain valve, so plural ribs exist between the draining holes correspondingly. Since the existence of the ribs will block the flow of liquids, the user has to exhale with great force to drain the liquid out through the drain valve.
Furthermore, conventional drain valves all have a circular cross section which does not match with the cross section (usually of a triangular shape) of the nose masking portion of the goggle mask, so the distance between the drain valve and the nose tip part of the nose masking portion is relatively large after the drain valve is joined to the nose masking portion. This makes it difficult for the liquid that accumulates at the nose tip to be drained out of the goggle mask through the drain valve.
In view of this, it is highly desirable in the art to provide a goggle mask capable of overcoming at least one or all of the drawbacks described above.